In 1965, during the Vietnam War, he joined the U.S. Army Reserve. He served on active duty from 1968 to 1970, attaining the rank of captain, and he remained in the Army until 1971. Nelson was admitted to the Florida bar in 1968, and began practicing law in Melbourne in 1970. In 1971, he worked as legislative assistant to Governor Reubin Askew.[17]

In 1972, Nelson married Grace Cavert. The couple have two adult children: Charles William "Bill Jr." Nelson[18] and Nan Ellen Nelson.[13][19]

In 1986, Nelson became the second sitting member of Congress (and the first member of the House) to travel into space. He went through NASA training with Senator Jake Garn of Utah. He was a Payload Specialist on Space ShuttleColumbia's STS-61-C mission from January 12 to 18, 1986. Columbia landed at Edwards AFB at 5:59 a.m. PST, on January 18. The mission's elapsed time was 6 days, 2 hours, 45 minutes, and 51 seconds. It was the last successful Space Shuttle flight before the Challenger accident, which occurred only ten days after Columbia's return. Nelson published a book about his spaceflight experience in 1988, Mission: An American Congressman's Voyage to Space.[20]

Nelson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978 in the open 9th District after the five-term Republican incumbent, Louis Frey Jr., chose to run for governor rather than for re-election.[23] In 1980, Nelson was reelected to that district, which encompassed all of Brevard and part of Orange County. He was redistricted to the 11th District, encompassing all of Brevard and parts of Orange, Indian River, and Osceola counties, and won re-election in 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988. He remained a member of the U.S. House until 1991.

In 1990, Nelson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Florida. He lost to former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles, who went on to win the general election. During the primary campaign, Nelson tried to make an issue out of Chiles' health and age, a strategy that backfired on him in a state with a large population of retirees and senior citizens.[citation needed]

In 2000, Nelson announced that he would be running for the United States Senate seat held by retiring Republican Connie Mack III.[24] Florida's "resign-to-run" law requires an incumbent office holder seeking another elective office to submit an irrevocable resignation from the office he or she currently holds unless that tenure would end anyway before the office holder would, if elected, assume the new position. The candidate may designate the effective date of the resignation to be in the future, but it must be no later than the date on which he or she would assume the new office. This law compelled Nelson to submit his resignation as Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshall early in 2000 when he began to campaign for the U.S. Senate seat. He chose January 3, 2001, as the effective date of his resignation, as that was the date on which new Senators would be sworn in.[25]

In 2000, Nelson ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Senator Connie Mack III. He won the election, defeating U.S. Representative Bill McCollum, who ran as the Republican candidate.

Following the 2004 election, in which Republican George W. Bush was re-elected and the Republican Party increased its majority in both the House and the Senate, Nelson was seen as vulnerable. He was a Democrat in a state that Bush had won, though by a margin of only five percentage points.[26]

Evangelical Christian activist James Dobson declared that Democrats, including Nelson, would be "in the 'bull's-eye'" if they supported efforts to block Bush's judicial nomineess.[27] Nelson's refusal to support efforts in Congress to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case was seen as "a great political issue" for a Republican opponent to use in mobilizing Christian conservatives against him.[28]

Katherine Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State and two-term U.S. representative, defeated three other candidates in the September 5 Republican primary. Harris's role in the 2000 presidential election made her a polarizing figure. Many Florida Republicans were eager to reward her for her perceived party loyalty in the Bush-Gore election, while many Florida Democrats were eager to vote against her for the same reason.[29] In May, when the party found itself unable to recruit a candidate who could defeat Harris in the primary, many Republican activists admitted that the race was already lost.[30]

Nelson focused on safe issues, portraying himself as a bipartisan centrist problem-solver.[29]
He obtained the endorsement of all 22 of Florida's daily newspapers.[31] Harris failed to secure the endorsement of Jeb Bush, who publicly stated that she could not win; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which had supported her in her House campaigns, did not endorse her in this race.[32]

As the election approached, polls showed Harris trailing Nelson by 26 to 35 points.[33] Nelson transferred about $16.5 million in campaign funds to other Democratic candidates,[34] and won the election with 60.4% of the vote to Harris's 38.2%.[35]

Vice President Joe Biden called Nelson crucial to President Obama's chances for winning Florida in 2012. In March 2011, Biden was reported as having said that if Nelson lost in 2012, "it means President Obama and the Democratic presidential ticket won't win the key battleground state, either."[36] Congressman Connie Mack IV, the son of Nelson's direct predecessor in the Senate, won the Republican nomination. Nelson eventually defeated Mack with 55.2% of the vote to Mack's 42.2%.[37]

Nelson is running for re-election in 2018. He is running unopposed in the Democratic Party primary, which takes place on August 28, 2018.[38]

On August 7, 2018, Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times that he believed that Russian operatives had penetrated some of Florida's election systems ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. He stated that more detailed information was classified.[39] On August 13, the Times reported that Nelson had "dropped a bombshell then disappeared," remaining "out of public view since raising alarms about Russian hacking."[40] Nelson stood by his claims of Russian election meddling on August 14, saying "It would be foolish to think that the Russians would not continue to do this as they did in Florida in 2016."[41]

The only Florida Democrat in statewide office as of 2017, he was described by Politico in March of that year as "a Senate indicator species...an institutional centrist." Politico wrote that the Democratic Party "is shifting left and so is he." One operative stated that "he has a steady left-wing voting record".[48]

As of July 2017, Nelson had a 53% approval rating and 25% disapproval rating, with 22% of survey respondents having no opinion on his job performance.[49]FiveThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional votes, shows that Nelson has voted with President Donald Trump's positions 42.5% of the time as of June 2018.[50]

Vote Smart, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States, "researched presidential and congressional candidates' public records to determine candidates' likely responses on certain key issues." According to Vote Smart's 2016 analysis, Nelson generally supports pro-choice legislation, opposes U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, supports reducing defense spending in order to balance the budget, supports an income tax increase in order to balance the budget, supports federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth, supports providing tax incentives to businesses for the purpose of job creation, supports requiring states to adopt federal education standards, opposes reducing restrictions on offshore energy production, supports the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, supports restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns, opposes repealing the Affordable Care Act, opposes requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship, and opposes allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts.[55]

On several occasions, Nelson has voted to reduce or eliminate the estate tax,[61] notably in June 2006, when he was one of four Democrats voting for a failed (57–41) cloture motion on a bill to eliminate the tax.[62]

Nelson works with government storm trackers during a hurricane-hunter flight into the center of Hurricane Charley in August 2004

Nelson voted against a Republican plan to extend the Bush tax cuts to all taxpayers. Instead, Nelson supported extending the tax cuts for those with incomes below $250,000.[63] Nelson voted for the Buffett Rule in April 2012. Speaking of his support for the Buffett Rule, Nelson said he voted to raise the minimum tax rate on incomes over $1 million per year to 30% in order to reduce the budget deficit and to make the tax code more fair. Nelson said, "In short, tax fairness for deficit reduction just makes common sense."[64]

Nelson voted in 2011 to end Bush-era tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 but voted for $143 billion in tax cuts, unemployment benefits, and other economic measures.[65][66] In that year, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS ran a TV commercial attacking Nelson for "voting for increased spending debt and taxes."[67]

In 2013 Nelson advocated tax reform, which he defined as "getting rid of special interest tax breaks and corporate subsidies." Stating needed qualities of said reform, he listed "simplicity, fairness, and economic growth".[68]

He and Susan Collins introduced legislation in 2015 that would "make it easier for smaller businesses to cut administrative costs by forming multiple-employer 401(k)-style plans."[69]

Nelson voted in favor of the Biggert–Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, which required the National Flood Insurance Program to raise insurance rates for some properties at high risk of flooding.[72][73] In 2014, following an outcry by Florida property owners facing steep flood insurance-rate hikes,[74] Nelson supported legislation that would provide retroactive refunds for taxpayers who had experienced large hikes in their flood-insurance rates due to the sale or purchase of a home. The proposal would also cap average annual premium increases at 15 to 18 percent and allow insurance-rates subsidies based on current flood maps.[75]

In September 2014, Nelson said the U.S. should hit back at ISIS immediately because "the U.S. is the only one that can put together a coalition to stop this group that's intent on barbaric cruelty."[76]

He supported the "Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act." Introduced in 2013 and again in 2015, it would keep guns from people with suspected terrorist links.[77]

Shortly afterwards, citing intelligence sources, Nelson did say that there was apparently "a link to Islamic radicalism," perhaps ISIS.[79][80] Nelson later said on the Senate floor that "terrorists...want to divide people" but that Mateen had instead "brought people together." He did not use the words Islam or jihad.[81] Following the massacre, Nelson and Barbara Mikulski supported a hike in FBI funding.[82]

A year after the Orlando massacre, Nelson attended a memorial at which he reiterated that it had "united Orlando and it united the country." He said nothing about jihad or about Koranicviews of homosexuality.[83]

Later in 2010, Grover Norquist criticized a Nelson amendment to Obamacare, the Small Business Lending Act, which would repeal deductions for oil and natural gas firms. The act, charged Norquist, would amount to "an effective tax increase". Instead, Norquist endorsed a competing amendment proposal by Senator Mike Johanns.[89]

In 2016, he called the House Zika bill "a disaster," complaining that it would take "$500 million in health care funding away from Puerto Rico" and limit access to "birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus and prevent terrible birth defects."[91]

In September 2017, Nelson and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the Reinsurance Act of 2017, an effort "to stabilize the health insurance marketplace." It would provide $2.25 billion to "reduce risk for insurance companies by providing funds to insurers for high-risk enrollees" and "help keep premiums in check."[92]

In January 2017, Nelson wrote President Trump a letter protesting his immigration order. "Regardless of the constitutionality or legality of this Executive Order," he wrote, "I am deeply concerned that it may do more harm than good in our fight to keep America safe." U.S. success in the fight against terrorism, he argued, "depends on the cooperation and assistance of Muslims who reject radicalism and violence. Whether intended or not, this Executive Order risks alienating the very people we rely upon in the fight against terror."[94]

In March 2010, Nelson complained that President Obama had made a mistake in canceling NASA's Constellation program.[95] On July 7, 2011, it was reported that Nelson said Congress "starved" the space program of funding for several years, but suggested that the situation was turning around and called on the Obama administration to push for NASA funding.[96]

On April 4, 2013, Nelson announced that he no longer opposed same-sex marriage. He wrote, "The civil rights and responsibilities for one must pertain to all. Thus, to discriminate against one class and not another is wrong for me. Simply put, if The Lord made homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, why should I discriminate against their civil marriage? I shouldn't, and I won't."[101]

Nelson voted against Senate Bill 3576, which called for a prohibition of U.S. aid to the governments of Egypt and Libya "contingent upon the release to US authorities the aggressors who attacked our embassy and consulate in Egypt and Libya."[103] The bill would also have limited aid to Pakistan until the release of Dr. Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA trace Osama bin Laden and who was imprisoned by the Pakistani government.[103]

Venezuela

In April 2017, Nelson called for tougher economic sanctions against Venezuela, which he called an "economic basket case."[104]

Cuba

He opposed a 2009 spending bill until his concerns about certain provisions in the bill related to Cuba were assuaged by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who assured him that those provisions "would not amount to a major reversal of the decades-old U.S. policy of isolating the communist-run island."[105]

In response to the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Nelson expressed remorse that the Democrats' Feinstein Amendment, which would have banned the sale of guns to individuals on the terrorist watch list, and a Republican proposal to update background checks and to create an alert for law enforcement when an individual is placed on the terrorist watch list, had failed to pass the Senate. He stated "What am I going to tell the community of Orlando that is trying to come together in the healing? Sadly, what I am going to have to tell them is that the NRA won again.”[109] Both he and Marco Rubio supported the bills.[110]

In October 2017, after the Las Vegas mass shooting, Nelson and Diane Feinstein sponsored a bill to ban bump stocks for assault weapons. "I'm a hunter and have owned guns my whole life," he said. "But these automatic weapons are not for hunting, they are for killing."[111]

In July 2017, Nelson introduced legislation to cut interest rates on student loans to 4 percent, but at a Tallahassee meeting with constituents, one ex-student with a $115,000 loan complained that 4 percent was still too high. "Why", he asked, "should students pay interest rates that are higher than what major banks pay to borrow money from the federal reserve, around 1 percent?"[112]

Nelson and Mel Martinez co-sponsored a 2006 bill banning oil drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast with Mel Martinez. In 2017 he said he wanted the ban to continue to 2027, but that it was "vigorously opposed by the oil industry." Along with 16 Florida congress members from both parties, he urged the Trump administration to keep the eastern Gulf of Mexico off limits to oil and gas drilling. "Drilling in this area," they wrote, "threatens Florida’s multibillion-dollar tourism-driven economy and is incompatible with the military training and weapons testing that occurs there."[113][114][115]

In 2015, after Gov. Rick Scott directed Florida officials to stop using the terms "climate change" and "global warming," Nelson introduced an amendment to prevent federal agencies from censoring official communications on climate change. It "fell to a point of order after a 51-49 vote, though Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Nelson in supporting the amendment."[119][120]

After Hurricane Maria in 2017, Nelson and Marco Rubio agreed that Trump had taken too long to send the U.S. military to Puerto Rico to take part in relief efforts. "For one week we were slow at the switch," Nelson said in San Juan. "The most efficient organization in a time of disaster is an organization that is already capable of long supply lines in combat. And that's the U.S. military."[121]

After Hurricane Maria led many Puerto Ricans to flee to Florida, Nelson encouraged them to register to vote there, saying that "they have been very embracing of my public service." PR Governor Rosselló called Nelson a "champion for Puerto Rico, and a great friend."[122]

In 2007, Nelson was the only Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee to vote against an amendment to withhold funds for the use by the CIA of enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. His vote, combined with those of all Republican members of the committee, killed the measure.[128]

In November 2011, Ahmed Bedier, an activist linked to CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood[citation needed], donated money to Nelson and co-hosted a fundraiser for him. Nelson's representatives later claimed that he "did not know about Bedier's relationship with CAIR" and that Bedier had exaggerated his closeness to the senator.[131] In November 2011 Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald wrote that the scandal over Bedier threatened the Jewish vote for Nelson, given that Bedier had called Israel a "terrorist state." Caputo noted that while "Nelson has gone to great lengths to fashion himself as pro-Israel", that was not enough for some conservative groups.[132]

Syria visit

In December 2006, Nelson made a trip to Syria to visit President Bashar Assad in Damascus.[133] At the time, the Bush Administration had a no contact policy with Syrian officials because "of its support of Hezbollah and Hamas, which the U.S. deems terrorist organizations".[134] The White House press secretary commented on the trip saying, "We don't think that members of Congress ought to be going there".[134] The State Department also disapproved of the trip, but provided logistical support to Nelson.[135]

Earmarks

Nelson was criticized in 2010 for his use of earmarks. Among the earmarks; $2 million for Florida Keys water quality improvements; $1.65 million for a Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex; $1.5 million for St. John's Heritage Parkway interchanges; $1.2 million for Jacksonville commuter rail alternative analysis; and $1 million for Cooperative Grouper-Snapper Fisheries Data Collection. "It seems Democrats learned nothing from the 2010 election," said Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo. Outgoing legislators Suzanne Kosmas and Alan Grayson were also criticized for earmarks.[136][137]

PMA Group

On February 17, 2009, David D. Kirkpatrick wrote that Nelson was one of three lawmakers who "were returning campaign contributions from donors listed as employees of the PMA Group, a Washington lobbying firm whose founder is under investigation for purportedly funneling money through bogus donors".[138]